I was outside this evening pulling weeds in my garden yet again (a never-ending battle). My 20-month-old son was outside playing with his 5-year-old sister. I wasn't paying much attention to them other than looking up ocassionally to see where they were. When I finished, I noticed that my son had a ring of dirt around his mouth. Apparently, he must of eaten some dirt. Ewww! Should I be worried about him? What's done is done and I can't reverse it. I'm choosing not to worry about it. It's good for him to build up some
immunities. I would not intentionally expose him to germs, but it's impossible to avoid all germs.
All babies that are in the crawling stage put everything they find in their mouth. My son still puts things in his mouth sometimes, but not as much as he used to. I have a family of 8 people tracking dirt in from outside. While I do now have a
vacuum cleaner that sanitizes, I'm sure there are still plenty of germs on my floor. I don't freak out if my son picks something up and puts it in his mouth. If it's something he might choke on, I will go dig it out of his mouth. Otherwise, I don't worry about it. Maybe it's because he's the 6th child and I'm not as uptight as I was with the first.
What about scary germs like
H1N1? Again, I would never intentionally expose my son or any of my kids to germs. When the
swine flu was circulating last year, I was extra cautious when out in public. I am generally cautious in public anyway. I watch out for people who are coughing and stay away from them. I try to avoid touching things as much as possible. I sanitize my hands and my kids hands often. As soon as the H1N1 vaccine became available to everyone, I had my whole family vaccinated. I know someone who almost died from swine flu, and I don't want to take any chances with that. My family also had an experience with
MRSA that I absolutely never want to deal with again! That is another big reason that I am very cautious about germs. I am a
germophobe and proud of it!
Do adults still need to build up immunities? My opinion is no. I have had enough colds, stomach bugs, food poisoning, etc. I prefer to avoid germs and build up my immune system through diet, supplements and exercise. I plan to stay healthy! Go to my website,
http://www.howtobeagermophobe.com/ and sign up for a free report: "How To Boost Your Immune System."
